


what's in a name? everything (i will always *pick* you)

by sailingthenightsea



Series: meant to be [1]
Category: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff, Jackson Life, Pre-Slash, also i don't even have to tag any warnings, also the alt title is from a guitar pick necklace i found while googling stuff and it was very ellie, dina's in ch2 sorry folks i'll get it done asap, for ellie and dina, go team, if u ship ellie and joel please stay away from me, it's just father daughter fluff y'all, not tlou2 compliant, plot? I don't know her, post TLoU, somehow i wrote a fic without any violence, the first one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27412216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailingthenightsea/pseuds/sailingthenightsea
Summary: It’s his name.The name she’s been writing on every piece of paper she gets her hands on. The name she’s run over and over in her mind and whispered into the dark, trying not to hope for things she knows she’s already desperately hoping for.It’sher name.
Relationships: Dina & Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)
Series: meant to be [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1810783
Comments: 10
Kudos: 85





	what's in a name? everything (i will always *pick* you)

**Author's Note:**

> just a short, sweet, fluffy piece i've had sitting in my drafts with a million other fics for a while. there's a second chapter, but i don't have it yet and it's not mission critical, so i'm just posting this as is for now :)
> 
> this *is* part of a series, but it's set before the other two fics, so it's not required to read them all together (though i recommend it)

Ellie startles when Joel tosses a crumpled paper bag down on the kitchen table in front of her. Her pencil skids a little and she would glare at him for messing up her drawing, but he’s got a… really fucking weird look on his face.

Something between hopeful and terrified and trying to pretend he’s neither. She softens before she really even means to.

She pokes the bag with the eraser end of her pencil. “So what’s this?” she asks casually, like he hadn’t just literally thrown it at her.

He shrugs because he’s a pain in her ass. “Open it,” he says.

Ellie raises both of her eyebrows, looks down at the package, and then back up at him. “It’s… not my birthday.”

He sighs, shifts a little on his feet. “It’s a… welcome home present. Or somethin’.” He makes a frustrated noise. “I _don’t know_ , Ellie, just- open it.”

Don’t let anyone say she’s not merciful on occasion. She grabs the corner of the bag and pulls it on top of her sketchbook. It’s lighter than she expects. She shoots him an exaggerated look as she picks it up and starts to open it.

It doesn’t make him look any less nervous, but it does make him look… almost more sure.

She can’t imagine what could possibly be in this little bag that means so much to him and his dumb face. Until she dumps the contents out into her hand and suddenly she can.

There’s a little metal triangle sitting on her palm and her eyes go wide as saucers. It’s a guitar pick. She’s got like twenty of them in her room because she loses them _constantly_.

But this is a guitar pick with _her name_ on it.

Except it’s not her name. Not the one her mother gave her.

It’s his name.

The name she’s been writing on every piece of paper she gets her hands on. The name she’s run over and over in her mind and whispered into the dark, trying not to hope for things she knows she’s already desperately hoping for.

It’s _her name_.

Ellie Miller.

Right there engraved into this little piece of metal that _Joel_ gave her. As a “welcome home present”.

Her hands are shaking, so she closes her fist around the pick and she holds it so tightly she thinks the name may engrave itself on her skin, on her bones.

She looks at him, her eyes still wide, hopeful and terrified and trying to pretend she’s neither. There’s a question she doesn’t know how to ask. “Joel,” she says softly, slowly. It’s not really asking, but it’s good enough.

He answers. “Saw you write it that way on some of your things, so I just thought…” He runs a hand through his hair and shifts his weight again. He breaks eye contact to look at his hands, his shoes, the ground. “If you don’t like it—”

“No,” she says quickly, instinctively pressing her still closed fist against her chest and covering it with her hand protectively, like he might try and take the name from her. It comes out a little bit louder than she intended, but it gets him to look at her—half surprised, half relieved. “No, I love it. It’s _perfect_.”

His face is too open, too raw, so she looks back down at the guitar pick. She runs her thumb across the letters.

When she finds the words, she says them slowly. “I wasn’t sure if… if you’d be okay with me using it. Your name.”

“Ellie,” he says, and she doesn’t think she’s ever known anyone who could put half as much meaning into a full sentence as Joel can in only the two southern-slowed syllables of her name. Then again she doesn’t think she’s ever known anyone like she knows Joel.

“It’s yours,” he says, “if you want it.”

“I do. Want it.” _Of course, I do—I want this and I want everything else, all of it, every last broken piece you have to offer._ But she doesn’t say that because it’s too much. After everything he’s given her, how could she ask for more?

He smiles, just a little, but it’s real and those are rare. She grins back, bright and wide and too much, always too much, but his eyes crinkle at the edges in response.

“Okay,” he says, “okay.” Then, “You don’t… You don’t gotta ask, you know? I don’t have a lot, but all of it’s yours.” He hesitates, but only for a second. “You’re _mine_.”

One of the first nights outside of Boston, they’d gotten their first meal in what felt like years at the time. She’d never been full, not like she has been in Jackson, but she’d never been that hungry before either. She’d never gone more than a day or two without _something_ in the orphanage. Baked fucking beans had never tasted so fucking good in her _life_ as they had that night. The can didn’t last nearly as long as she wanted it to, but the pain stopped. It was all they’d had, just the two cans. She didn’t pout or beg or even glance up at him, but he passed her his own can wordlessly and turned his back on her before she could protest. It wasn’t much, just the last few bites, but it had made her look at him differently. It made her trust him in the quiet moments like she already did in the loud, fast, dangerous, completely fucking terrifying ones. She’d smiled at him, just a little, even if he couldn’t see it.

The habit stuck, no matter how hard she tried to fight him on it. Some days, he still does it, pushing the last couple bites onto her plate and then standing to put his own in the sink.

She doesn’t even have to ask, he just gives her _everything_ like it’s obvious, like it already belongs to her.

“And I’m _yours_.”

**Author's Note:**

> as always thank you so much for reading! drop a comment (even just a <3) to let me know you enjoyed!
> 
> -
> 
> also i have god knows how many wips for this series, so please lmk if you'd be interested in any of the following, so i know what to focus on next
> 
> a) ellie and joel playing guitar on the porch (fluff, introspective)
> 
> b) ellie during the winter and right as they get to jackson (introspective, mostly stream of consciousness)
> 
> c) ellie coming out bc i'm self indulgent (fluff, hurt/comfort, writing it makes me cry)
> 
> d) oh! badass ellie and joel! i wrote the whole thing for the line "my dad's gonna kill you" (plot, action, violence, fluff?)
> 
> e) alternate events to That Scene from tlou2 (angst, everybody lives, fuck tlou2, hurt/comfort, i think i cried writing this too tbh)


End file.
